Nbc Reporter Regains Press Card After Six-week Investigation

The Government Press Office Friday restored the press credentials of NBC correspondent Martin Fletcher, more than six weeks after first suspending them.

Fletcher’s credentials and those of Washington Post correspondent Glenn Frankel were suspended on April 26, after both were accused of failing to adhere to Israeli censorship laws.

Both reporters had bypassed censors and filed stories saying that Israel’s Inner Cabinet had approved the assassination of Khalil al-Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, the second in command of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Frankel’s press card was returned May 15, but the delay in returning Fletcher’s card, press office director Yoram Ettinger said last month, was because of the “continuing examination being conducted by the defense establishment regarding the failure to obey Israel’s censorship regulations.”

Ettinger stressed that the investigation was not conducted into Fletcher’s activities, but into those of NBC. The network came under fire again on May 2, when it interrupted regular programming to broadcast a bulletin reporting the Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon.

The bulletin was broadcast hours before the official announcement and possibly even before Israeli troops crossed over the border in Lebanon.

The Israeli newspaper Hadashot reported that Fletcher recommended that the report, based on American sources, not be broadcast and refused to broadcast it from Israel.

Fletcher’s press card was returned after he submitted a letter stressing his awareness of censorship laws.

Fletcher is scheduled to speak on foreign media coverage of Israel at a seminar being held this week at the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute.